Star Wars: The Old Republic - Eat or be Eaten
by Demod20
Summary: There is one rule on Korriban: Eat or be Eaten. Whether you're from an esteemed bloodline or a lowly slave it's survival of the fittest. Join our tale of aspiring former slave, Jez'belial, and the warrior Sarcass. What lengths will they go to achieve their destiny? Will they become confident allies or sworn enemies? Only time will tell if they survive to become true Sith!
1. A Slave's Beginnings

Cramped. Dark. Noxious.

Those were proper descriptors for the situation one Jez'belial had suffered on her transport to the graveyard world of the Sith Empire, Korriban. Having been sold by her former master -at no small expense she may add-, the woman had sported an icy grimace that made most of the other 'merchandise' wary of her very presence. Still, it wasn't helped by the limited space for passengers and the sheer number of these hopefuls presented to the new galactic order.

While visibility was practically null, the sound of awkward breathing, coughs, and hissing was heard all around her. A singular eye glared with a whirring retraction, its gaze emitting a soft crimson hue that shifted from one side to the other. From this perspective, she could see that she was -like before- numbered among twelve that she had seen accumulated within the Sith Capital Ship, the Emboldened, that she was ferreted to days ago. They ranged in body types and were all varying derivatives of Human; save for one that had arrived prematurely ahead of them.

Even with the red overlay her glowing eye possessed she could tell that this was a Pureblood, one of the original Sith species that had created the doctrines, teachings and techniques all titled Dark Siders possessed eons later. On average they retained more inherent ability in calling upon the Force and were affluent to the most malevolent of emotions. It was a rare sight for anyone to see something this peculiar slipping in with the rest of these purchased goods.

She could smell the pretentiousness when his eyes met her visible one.

The woman swore this was the first time they actually acknowledged each other's presence and yet she could already feel tension swirling within the dank, cramped space of the transport. The uncomfortable sounds of breathing quieted around her and people attempted to rustle a bit away from herself. Even with her imbalanced scope of vision she could see the Sith's eyes brighten and a clear sense of animosity telegraphed towards her.

The low rumbling of the ship's engines rattling their confines disturbed what could've been a dangerous confrontation. The curved ceiling's flat banding flickered on that illuminated them all in a blood hue. The overcast caused her now apparent cybernetic eye to retract till it was but a sliver exposed, a sight of her fair lips curling into a smirk showed her smugness at his stewing being cut off so obtusely.

The rest of the trip stewed as the atmosphere broke and they tapered off into an even glide while decelerating. The transport's wings pulled upward like a mechanical bird and twisted around, unfolding its back hatch into a ramp for them to exit. The red lighting dimmed and the smell of something acrid as well as dry swept through their tight hold. Rising up, a few of the 'product' rushed out, eager to escape not only the threatening stand-off between her and the Pureblood, but also to get actual fresh air.

When she followed them up, she wished she was back in the hold. The Sun -if you could call that dying star one- left an impression of a golden-burgundy overlay across the tomb world's atmosphere. Despite the lack of moisture Jez felt a chill sweep the air as no actual warmth was felt within the outdoors. Was it because of the system's eons of decay, or was this some aspect of being corrupted for millennia by the Dark Side?

Either way, when she turned her sight away from the purplish haze cast by Korriban's Sun, she saw an immense row of foreboding statues looming higher than even skyscrapers she had seen. They were featureless hulks of erect stone, carved with a distinguishable look of solemn despair over what was otherwise unremarkable effigies of living beings. Some of these standing monuments were chipped across their bald-depicted scalps, while others had pieces of their faces missing or even the crossed-arms not entirely pristine. Despite the unearthing that had taken place centuries ago, and even more recent remodeling as of late years, the resting places of past Lords of the Sith still looked to be as ominous as it was antithetical to welcoming.

Below the hulks lied the main feature of this side of the cold, dry world was the Valley of the Dark Lords. Massive temples dedicated to the glory and burial of past rulers of darkness, much had been unearthed in the past century of archaeology thanks to the diligent appliance of the sole city of commerce and trade on-planet, Dreshdae. When the Sith returned in recent years, the valley was restricted to only Sith personnel with bare exceptions to assist deciphering the ruins left from ages past. Onyx in slabs of resistant mineral and natural sediment, the faces of these tombs spanned the Valley for kilometers, with the most auspicious of the Dark Lords being sidled most approximately to one another and under the most intrigue of the Empire.

Even from where she stood, Jez could see a recently uncovered formation within the middle of what used to be untouched ashen soil. A rectangular roof with four obelisks of ancient lettering inscribed upon it, dozens of grey-matte uniformed people roamed around its surface, most armed with bandoleer holstered Vibroblades or blasters on their hips. Black armored men with stripes of red indicated a sizable presence of Imperial forces helped keep additional security, and meant a great deal of law was held accounted for unlike times past where the Sith Order had governed its own.

Amidst her surveying her newfound surroundings, a familiar silhouette brushed her aside with an abrasive shove against her left shoulder. Her mouth formed a snarl, her face raised to look back as a hint of the red-faced man gave a hint of a glance over his black fabric flank. The eloquently dressed man gave no qualms of even uttering a retort, simple snorting and walking ahead to join the rest of the occupants of the now berthed shuttle behind her. He met up with a man of distinguishable authority, with white gloves that sharply contrasted the layers of stylized black, red and centralized white on his uniform's front accessorized by a pair of metal plates.

He gave a look of grim affirmation to the black hooded Pureblood, as if he had been expecting him. Not even giving a glance her way, he turned with the cloaked man joining him along with the rest of the initiates into the trapezium shaped entrance into the greater slab of what she saw was a docking ring of the Academy. Rolling her left eye while her bionic mimicked it in a whirring gyration, jogging up to join her fellow 'product' within the entrance.

The moment she stepped foot within broad entrance, a shield of static purple emerged, causing her to whirl around with a look of surprise adorned on her face.

"Look who finally decides to show up," A voice growled with the delicacy of a Rhondo in a pottery shop. Twisting her head to face him with a mask of apathy affixed on her visage, it only served to bring out a more twisted expression of distaste on his face. The signs of Dark Side decay was noticeable from her sight, with veins spread across what would've been a later 30's early 40's adult human's veneer. A crimson serrated mark was emblazoned on his forehead, twisting around its deep red tattoo to circle around his right eye in a pit of burgundy; though both eyes were colored in a murky blue that glared at her out of obligation rather than desire fueling his contempt.

Choosing not to speak just yet, it gave the man opportunity to pace in front of them, like a drill sergeant in front of a squad but with none of the fancy nor expectation.

"Since you took your sweet time getting here," The man sneered, his short auburn hair pointing about like a sweeping razor atop his vein-enamored flesh. Gloved hands pressed against his hips, causing his cylindrical shaped saber to jingle audibly and the satchel containing a datapad to clink with a rustling motion. Whirling around so his red-outlined, blue eye shot at Jez especially, he continued to elaborate further; noticeably without the presence of the black robed Pureblood she saw him meeting a minute ago among them. "I hope freedom didn't go to your head, or that you didn't need to attempt the trials to become Sith."

Jez narrowed her eyes, but restrained herself from speaking. She had just gotten on this miserable rock and she already hated this man. The torrent of whirling emotions that had caused her to be singled out by her previous master had gotten the notice of the Sith Order. Purchased on behalf of the Academy, along with a slew of other sensitive potentials, she knew better than anyone that a loose tongue and a wrong look would be met with severe punishment.

Not that it ever stopped her before, she just knew when to use it to her advantage.

Seeing that she wasn't saying anything, the man continued to speak, "I am Overseer Harkun, and Lord Zash has tasked me to weed out you gutter trash to see who could possibly be her next apprentice. And I intend to do just that."

This was new information to her ears. Ever since she had been 'acquired', Jez hadn't heard a word of what was expected of her and only that she was to become a member of the Sith Order thanks to them recognizing her gifts. They weren't appraised of how long she had harbored this talent of taking her emotions and transmuting them into a negative charged current of electrifying energy; just that she had let loose upon both her master and several guards attempting to 'discipline her' when she acted out of line.

"Who is this Zash?" She inquired with raised brow above her contracted optic, the other eye blinking casually as she laid this query out.

"That's _Lord_ Zash to you, worm," Harkun snarled, his gloved hand jabbing a finger at her before forming it into a threatening fist. "She's a Dark Lord of the Sith and more important than you'll _ever_ be."

She had to suppress a snort. This man reeked with a shell of contempt but she could tell, even with her supposed fledgling talents that he was hiding an insecurity that was projecting far more undeservingly to those who had just arrived to prove themselves.

Well, not without complete justification.

She had known that Ziost was the planet where most standard Force Users were sent to train and rise up in the ranks gradually in a much more guarded regimen to keep the least amount of casualties while hardening them. They were warriors and often distributed to the front lines. Coming to Korriban meant you were one of many things: too rough to be sent to Ziost for training, too unpredictable to be acquired for the corps meant to train shadows and assassins, and like her those with an unexpected potential that could service someone of a higher station.

This wasn't a place meant to raise an army. This was a world where you were crushed by the pressure of the Dark Side in hopes of producing a diamond among the ashes of the weak and feeble.

"Now as for the rest of you refuse," The Overseer sneered, not even bothering to break his gaze of contempt from Jez to address them. He merely nodded to his left, ordering them with a gruff hiss. "You already know your trial, so get on with it. I'll be telling latecomer here what's expected of her."

The other 'merchandise' began to walk away, each of them clad in a uniform that distinctly put them apart from the rest of the bleak uniforms of Korriban. Two burly brothers wore skin-tight jumpsuits of grey sleeves with red gloves, bearing padded soft-underplate scheme over their drab color scheme that made them easy to sift out from the others. A few wore black fatigues with light armoring, some with amethyst gloves and boots with others wearing red or grey.

The last of them, a crest-shaped red-haired woman -whose name she believes was Kory- who looked no older than nineteen, stepped briefly over in front of Jez'belial's left sight and cast an encouraging smile. Her face too soft, eyes too hopeful with peach lips forced into a grin she knew was masking her own fear that rose off her body like unwashed filth. Wearing a ceramic colored top with hazel colored trousers, she gave a wink as her voice gave a hint of a giggle out of her throat.

"Watch your back, friend," She began to say, her blue eyes glistening, the right side of her face giving a distinct discoloration of a recent scar as she ebbed aloud in a low tone. "And don't worry about what he said. He can't kill us all."

"Wow. I feel better already," Jez snarked aloud with a deadpan smarm that defused the woman's attempt to be cheery. Narrowing her optic at her, she spread her own twisted smile back at her. "Next time, why not remind me a blaster doesn't always hit its mark? I think that'll save me big time when I'm lined up in front of a firing squad."

"O-Okay," Kory echoed, her eyes wavering and her mind shifting its attention to the present; which brought her quickly away from the sight of the prejudice from the Overseer. "Suit yourself."

The moment she left, Harkun didn't waste a moment to speak with a leering stare poised at her.

"Now, slave," He snarled, reminding her of her last position within the Empire prior to being brought to Korriban. "For your first trial, there's a hermit who lives in the tomb of Ajunta Pall named Spindrall."

Pausing, as if putting more thought into the matter himself, he gave a belabored shrug and a nasally sigh.

"Spindrall is a lunatic, but Lord Zash sees him as some kind of prophet," He complained aloud, gesturing offhandedly to her with his gloved palm for emphasis. "Once you find him in the Valley of the Dark Lords, he will test you."

"Great," Jez'belial replied with a thin-stare of annoyance. "Glad to see the stories weren't all exaggeration; you really do throw your hopefuls to the Tu'kata down here, don't you?"

"You have your task, slave," Harkun dismissed with a pointed glare. "Find Spindrall, in the tomb of Ajunta Pall in the Valley of the Dark Lords to be tested by him. Don't keep Spindrall waiting, _slave_."

"Fine-Fine," She let out a long-winded sigh, placing one sleeved elbow into a palm, craning it in an aimed gesture to reinforce her sarcasm. "I'll go to the incredibly dangerous necropolis of a dead Sith Lord, be tested by a verified madman in order to fulfill this task."

A wordless scoffing noise emitted from the Overseer. He'd watch her jog off away, her standard-issue Vibro-blade jingling over her back. Once she was out of sight, he turned away, walking back into the high-vaulted corridors of the Academy in order to do something more constructive with his time. And something that wouldn't boil his blood by being charged in overseeing such disreputable scoundrels for initiates.

"I wouldn't be surprised if she died at the foot of the Academy," He sneered under his breath with a sly curl of his face into a twisted expression of fantasy-filled joy.

If only he'd be so lucky.

* * *

Slugs.

Giant slugs with rows of sharp legs and a elastically large ovular mouth with rows of sharp teeth. Called K'lor'slugs, these creatures spew acid and tear people limb from limb with blade-like pincers that they use to scurry about on the temple floor. She had the displeasure of seeing some being shot at by troopers who got too close to the line of established tents for merchants and suppliers for initiates going inside. One of the initiates she hadn't seen before got too confident, slashing one's head off only for a splash of regurgitating acid to douse his head down his chest in its crackling ichor.

He died screaming, a sound that seemed to be commonplace to the surveying mini-bazaar secured by imperial soldiers.

Of course she wasn't warned of what was actually entailed in reaching the mad hermit. She had a feeling that Harkun had it out for her, so when she actually arrived she wouldn't last long heading in.

Thankfully, her years in her previous place of living wasn't just there to look pretty or do mundane things. She had combat ability that was drilled into her, her previous owner had an eccentric desire to test specific enhancers and pry the secrets of evolutionary biology differing from humanoid species, along with the genetic and cybernetic applications to further push them to a higher precipice. It was how she got her current cybernetic interface surgically grafted along her face.

One eye that contracted and retracted in layers of miniature plating that contained an ever-glowing red optic lens, held in place by a spiral of arachnid legs grooved into her flesh around the outline of her eye socket. Four lines of cybernetic outline was placed above her brows and along her jawline, giving her complete sensory data to be translated in harmony to her brain and allow a seamless transition of digital interface to real-time comprehension. While she didn't have a gratification of the scientific gibberish of her benefactor, the woman knew in layman's terms it gave her an acute sense of sight beyond her ordinary vision and aided her ability to mentally target things faster than she could perceive them.

So when the k'lor'slugs rushed up to her, she swung her vibroblade around in curving arcs that disarmed them of their legs and allow her to brandish her true offensive weapon. A shower of lightning, crackling in the air and snapping around a convulsive creature, its chin barbecued while setting it aflame quicker than it could convulse.

This was a repetition she endured throughout the journey into temple out of the ashen sandy earth outside. Deep within the vaulted ceilings where the air was musty and the walls were decorated by hooded statues with heads bent and arms enclosed by chipped sleeves, she had felt that distinct chill from the outside grow colder within. Her mouth produced clouds of vapor as she ventured inside, her black outlined red jumpsuit doing little to stave off the frost-like atmosphere prevalent within the tomb's interior.

Moans of distant wailing echoed from within, followed by chittering of dozens of creatures that had laid nests undisturbed till of recent days. One such erupted from the ground, forcing Jez to leap back and throw up a bolt of lightning to snap from her palm straight into the gaping mouth of the k'lor'slug. It gave a squealing gurgle before its undulating mass expanded, exploding from the inside in a shower of vaporized residue that left a loud thunderclap within the tomb.

"Fragin' filth!" She swore, landing with a huff before spitting at the hole that was caused from the ambush predator. "I've got bigger things to worry about than you disgusting critters."

Taking time to get her wits back, she'd trek further in, walking through a few openings of the tomb that led past a few more sights of the enormous, voracious pests. She saw much to her disgust another initiate, squirming beneath four smaller slugs that were goring his body while seeming to be painfully alive. Not bothering to cast her gaze upon him for long, she jogged ahead, leaving him to his fate.

She had even saw a barricade of Imperial Troopers, quartered off against a wary ensemble of the fiends. One of them had his helmet off, a weathered middle aged man of tanned complexion with a dusty swept head of hair was giving instruction to a bigger man of bald head that radiated confidence. She was half tempted to stop by and see what they were talking about, but the memory of Harkun talking down to her coerced her in casting aside that fleeting desire quickly.

She was here for a purpose, after all. It was to rise up through the ranks, to prove her worth and to spite that wretched man.

Maneuvering through the combat of many creatures that had pursued new prey, dispatching those that were too foolish to recognize her as a threat. When it had been nearly an hour of sorting through the various massive rooms that all looked the same, she found a chamber that was unlike the rest.

Not only was it tall in height, but it had two statues similar to the colossus carvings on the surface, but bearing no solemn look of despair but rather a pair of hood-obscured visages. One held a stone-carved blade upward, and the other held one down below. Conversely, she looked to see a pair of statues that mirrored those poses on either side of the rectangular entrance of the room.

Treading inside, she saw peerless black robed men on either side of her, venting aggression against what seemed to be padded practice dummies. Thrashing them with vibroblades that only left sparse etches into the resilient material of the still-target, others let loose chaotic currents of energy or throttled with telekinetic bludgeons of invisible power of the Force. They seemed to have been at this for hours, if not days, and this entire chamber wreaked of frustration and malcontent.

Walking past them, they didn't break their routine, her reddish-black dressed person walking past the expansive room over the ancient dust filled brick floor to a set of wide stairs leading up to the aforementioned statues. Her feet placed one in front of the other, cautiously advancing, feeling a sense of something ancient and the source of the frigid temperature within the tomb. It felt like an age to walk up so many stairs and an inkling of suspicions crossed her mind of what she was actually going to see when she got to the top.

But, her doubts were assuaged, when her expectations were defused by the sight of a lean, brown cloaked man with winding lines of white enamored into his hooded fabric. He was resting in a kneeling posture, as if praying, in front of the sarcophagus of none other than the Dark Lord Ajunta Pall. It was here that she had sensed that foreboding chill, that continued to ebb passively into the air, without any real rhyme or reason to it.

"Ah, _slave_," A graveled voice of age beyond count breached the air. Slowly rising to his feet, with no signs of discomfort from assuming such a posture for prolonged period of time, he turned his covered head to expose his face to her. There she saw more wrinkles surrounding an ashen grey, complexion, with veins spread out like spiderwebs from the eyes down over his bearded jawline. Messied frays of grey moved with his chapped lips, golden eyes burning with swirls of crimson within the inner recess of his irises, as he observed her in detail. "An Echani is a rare sight on Korriban. To think I'd feel such raw emotions from one births curiosity within the codgers of my soul; though that hardly matters to what you are to be tested, nonetheless."

It was the first time anyone, outside of her former leash-bearer, her lineage. Yes, she was taken in by a demented scientist because of her genes, shown perfectly well in an alabaster pale hue of attractively smooth complexion with silver eyes and snow colored hair. Her lithe form held an inbred muscular form that was toned in a way that didn't lose anything to her shapely figure, but years of experimentation, tests, and a few choice 'accidents' had left their marks on her. None was more profound than the cybernetic interface surrounding her pure visage, the arachnid implant that held her artificial eye, and the one sign caused from her last outburst that earned her attention from the Sith Order; the sandpaper markings of fettered flesh along her silvery-smoke-lens eye that was the result of her letting loose arcs of her sorcerous energy while being held close to her chosen targets.

Seeing that she didn't make a sound to retort to that, the man graveled out in his withered way, placing one hand over his bush of a beard while supporting the thin elbow that postulated aloud to her.

"You came here for your trial, yes? Learn the ways of the Sith from an old man in a tomb; the last of Harkun's lot to arrive, no doubt," He paused, grinning with a frayed smirk of knowing, as he gestured a gloved hand pointedly to her. "And hopefully to return to your Overseer with the mark of my approval, no doubt."

"Yes, my lord," Jez'belial replied, nodding to him with respect and candor she normally wouldn't convey to anyone of Harkun's lot. She had yet to see why he was considered to be insane, apart from him adamantly squatting in front of a dead man's stone coffin.

Or perhaps that was why.

"Of course it is," He replied with a mirthful tone. "I know the way of things on the surface."

Standing up straight, he gestured to her with a more authoritative tone that was audibly sounded over the four corners of the final resting place of the ancient lord of the Sith, "But before I answer, either way, you must pass a trial of blood. You must survive, and I will teach you what I know."

Without saying another word, Spindrall turned and knelt back down in meditation before the sarcophagus once again.

Seeing that she wasn't going to get anything accomplished by standing around, she turned on her heel and descended the stairs. The closer she came to ground level of the chamber the more clearly she saw what the purpose of the plain black robed men were. They had heard the hermit's words as clearly as she did and began to tilt their obscured visages towards her, like serpentine creatures poised to strike. Placing the flat of her sole upon the bricks of the floor, she narrowed her silvery eye while her synthetic one dilated.

They circled around her, readying their own vibroblades with rapt anticipation. She could sense the yearning for her blood come off them like the smell of stomach acid. They were all aching to unleash their fury upon her, of what she could feel was frustration and indignation. It seemed they weren't coming at her like disciplined servants of the Dark Side but rather a group of angry thugs.

Which made her confidence surge as much as her power.

The front pair brandished their blades, and unleashed a pair of forked streams of crackling Dark Side energy towards her. To their surprise, she'd be there one moment and then gone in a flash the next. All of them looked up with shock to see her having leaped in an aerodynamic spiral, sword in hand and a cauldron of revving energy whining within her grasp. Descending down upon them she'd throw her palm full of incandescent burning light straight into the floor between them.

Unleashing a shockwave of sporadic charge that snaked out to ensnare them in a deadly, burning grasp.

Hearing their screams brought a chill up her spine and a rushing swell within her stomach. Smiling widely, she'd rise up from the scorched crater and leap in for the finishing blow to the man on her right, driving her blade deep into his chest and twisting it around till she saw him stop convulsing. Withdrawing in a spout of blood, she'd turn around and fire an additional bolt at the other, his rising frame finding his chest speared through by a white-hot blade of Dark Side energy that was manifested.

Falling forward onto his face dead, the next two brandished their weapons and leaped forward with a blood-red haze embroiling their beings. One struck with enough force that it rattled the Echani's guard, her arms shaking under each successive stroke. The other spun around her defenses and whipped a leg to plant a boot into her side, following up with a telekinetic thrust to send her sprawling across the floor.

In any other circumstance, the combination would be enough to fell most uninitiated. But in the case of the tortuously experimented on former slave, the white-haired woman shoulder length tresses whipped up with her head and she'd show a blood-leaking grin across her fair lips.

When the two leaped forward to combine their efforts in slaying her, she'd undulate visibly, warping the spectrum of light as she became a conduit of her adrenaline induced excitement. Tapping into their rage to siphon her own, she'd bring herself backwards at the last possible moment to avoid their crushing overhead blows that shattered the bricks she last sprawled over. Bolting to the far wall, she'd cling to it by her feet and then throttle herself back towards them with such veracity they didn't have time to anticipate the electrical blur that surrounded her vibroblade.

One virulent streak of bluish white that severed their heads along with their hoods from their shoulders as she slammed back to the ground in a sparking thunderclap.

The last pair looked at each other and hesitantly approached, keeping their weapons upward to keep themselves defended. Their senses poised at her split-second movements and what she'd possibly do in what could be anticipated as linear attacks. The two felt confident in defeating her with their combined strength, despite her surprising showcase.

Unfortunately for them, they haven't anticipated her not attacking them albeit directly.

Charging up strength for an inevitable strike, they'd see webs of light cast in cacophony around her, cracking the ground and snapping in the atmosphere. Around her single human eye they'd see a wellspring of white with bluish energy snaking around it, producing a pupiless film of unholy power. Her cybernetic eye widened with a menacing crimson gleam and she'd unleash both palms over their heads in a shower of destructive arcing light-

-shattering the mid-center of the statues behind them.

Unable to brace themselves, they could do nothing but rush in futility out of the way as half of two statues toppled atop of them, splattering them across the ancient brickwork in a messy pile of obscured gore. Grinning at her handiwork, she clutched at her side and stifled the pain as she hissed between her teeth. Even though she had healed at a remarkable rate, even before fully realizing her gift at childhood, she never enjoyed the sensation of feeling the arcane energies swirling within and knitting broken things back together.

After mystically restoring herself, she stood straight and walked back up the flight of stairs, to present herself to Spindrall.

"Excellent," The hermit spoke in a pleased manner, as he stood back up to his feet with a practiced grace only someone like him could pull off. "These former acolytes had failed in their own trials and wished for nothing more than to earn the privileged of obtaining a second chance by killing you and taking your place."

Turning to regard her with a wrinkled smile, he nodded to her with a decipherable increment of pride in his face as much as his voice, "Of course, your desire surpassed theirs, and now you wear their blood as a mantle of your victory. Well done, but you are not Sith yet."

"I figured it wouldn't be that easy," She admitted aloud with a sardonic smirk adorned on her mostly fair features.

Placing his hands behind his back, Spindrall began to chant aloud a familiar recital she swore heard echoed even during her scant penetration into her former slave owner's archives of the Sith and Jedi.

"_Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion I gain strength. Through strength I gain power. Through power I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken; the Force shall set me free._"

Stopping his pacing, he echoed gravely with a raised hand, "This is the Sith Code. Commit it to your heart and you will have the strength to crush your enemies. Do you understand?"

Jez'belial felt like she understood.

"So, in order to get more power, I must put passion into all of my actions," She surmised, raising her hand up, the other still clenching her bloodied vibroblade that was held aloft by her hip. "The rest seems to fall naturally in line once I obtain power."

"Do not put it so timidly," Spindrall rebuked with a shake of his head. "Such caution is the attitude of a slave, and will leave you weak. Feeble. Only through mustering your resolve through boundless passion can you achieve a strength that of a true Sith."

She nodded, though this time with a hardened mask of resolve to reinforce the will she was trying to solidify. It was hard, to completely break away the shackles of her former life. She had been in someone else's charge for most of her life, having forgotten what it was like to be free in any capacity. But now she was here, and there was no room to doubt herself.

Once that was established, Spindrall had taken it upon himself to show her some basic forms, inferring that it would be worth learning even if she didn't have too much time to place it to memory. Though she had yet to be ordained with the weapon of a true Sith, a Lightsaber, the defensive posture to reflect attacks was a crucial means to adopt since she didn't possess the physical attributes to wholly defend against her more brutish peers. He instructed her how to build up a seething mantle to accelerate her recovery, making it possible so that she wouldn't have to wait too long to regain her energy between each straining encounter. A few more criticisms about her wild use of her Force Lightning abilities and how to properly control it, then she felt even more confident in her ability to survive more tasks by her dreaded Overseer.

"Now, take what you have learned and go with my approval back to Harkun," Spindrall informed her with a pointed gesture, his voice rasping with a level of malice he hadn't indicated until now. "Use your hatred of him to get stronger, and any fear of him to harbor even greater strength."

"I will," Jez bowed, this time fully in gratitude to the man. "Thank you, my lord."

"He may raise his fist to strike," He added, a small smile shown through his messy beard as his golden-red eyes twinkled with a hidden knowledge. "But only Lord Zash may direct where the blow will land."

A thought had occurred. This woman, this Dark Lord of the Sith was the one tasking Harkun in finding a candidate worthy of being her apprentice. It explained why he had such an abrasive attitude to everyone who arrived. He was meant to cull the unnecessary, but it was obvious his own personal feelings were interfering with his judgement. But, if the final say really belonged to Zash...

"Who controls Lord Zash?"

Smiling at this question, the hermit rumbled out with satisfaction glowing in his words, "When you figure that one out, then you will have power over both of your masters."

Then, with a sigh, the hermit turned his back to her, and the frigid feeling she had been feeling returned to waft past the man. It had only just occurred to her the moment he stood up, the air had shifted and tempered itself to a warmth she didn't think existed in this tomb. Did he truly possess such strength that she had underestimated his true worth based on sight alone?

"Now, go," He ebbed out in a withered voice as he knelt before the sarcophagus once more. "Leave me to my rest."

Feeling the eeriness return, Jez'belial agreed to that notion and left the odd but wise man alone. Escaping the tomb, she'd faintly hear some resounding booms quake the structure, its bowels vibrating from the distance of explosions that were yielded. Unsure of what that meant, she propelled herself with a burst of haste through channeling the Force through her body. It was a natural thing she had been adept at using to help increase her performance for her former slave master, and had him convinced it was purely due to her Echani genes for many years.

Now, having taken what was said to heart -as well copied to her cybernetic implant's digital memory to play back later- she hurried herself along out of the tomb's interior and back to the outside. She had notice the Sun was setting, and the darkness was filling the horizon. Had she been beneath the surface for so long?

Shaking her head, she decided it was time to return to the others and report to her Overseer.

Her journey to greatness, she believed, was just beginning to unfold!

* * *

**A/N:** And here's my newest story! The first of a few notable characters, I decided to take some stock from my current playthrough as "Jez'belial" to give a bit of unique weight to an otherwise pretty interesting campaign. Of course, because I'm planning on bringing other Sith origins into the mix, it's likely they're going to run awry of each other and interactions will be a plenty. It'll be fun to get to the meat of things, and I do mean that, I'll hardly take any real interest in Side Quests unless it's directly correlated into the plot I have in mind.

Until then, I hope anyone who had the chance to read this was entertained and will continue to follow me through this story. See you all in the next eventual update!


	2. A Warrior Unrivaled

It was finally time.

For years, the man named Sarcass had been bred for the singular purpose of refining his abilities to highlight his talent. Having been born of a bloodline of auspicious individuals of the Empire, he had known no other way of living than the path set before him. Since a young age he had showcased an affluent supply of martial prowess, instructors that had gotten him to a point where his family sending him to Ziost; a world of ashen colored forests and cold tundras.

But in his arrival, many of his teachers found that he was leagues beyond the basic parameters set down for initiates. His unnatural affinity to the Dark Side that strengthened his body made physical combat one without thought, and his beginnings of tapping into telekinetic sorcery was also rapidly unraveling. He was there naught but a year, before he was given orders to be shipped to Korriban under the authority of someone very high up within its primary feature; the Sith Academy.

His trip to the barren world of graves and murder was one of rapt anticipation. He had dreamed of the day he could prove his worth, to truly adorn himself in the trappings of the Sith and obtain great power that could surpass even the likes of his own family's lineage. They were of beings who had been the stripes of true warriors and conquerors without equal in the ancient days within the Unknown Regions beyond Republic records. If he could make a name for himself in this age of false peace, perhaps he'd be known throughout all walks of life?

He was the sole passenger within the troop transport. With plenty of room to stretch his legs, he couldn't recline due to the tension in his muscles. The lack of light had only drawn him into an upright seated bout of meditation, something he had been taught since childhood to do whenever his mind was fraught with frivolous thoughts. Only the beating of his heart echoed in his ears and the flow of his blood could be felt burning beneath his skin.

Adorned in an armored meshing of simplistic fiber and light plating, Sarcass had padding along his shoulders with a plasteel covering with smaller bits of pliant exterior protection braced around his crimson gloves and plated boots. The overall grey surface would appear deceptively vulnerable, but it actually composed of bundles of energy absorbents that dispersed damage upon contact. Be it kinetic, artificial or elemental it'd lighten the burden of damage beyond what was considerably harmful.

As the ship's engines rumbled, the hull shaking in atmospheric entry, the interior lights flashed to a static scarlet hue. This exposed his bald head, shaven as it was during his time on Ziost and kept this way to discard the necessity of keeping hygiene work to a minimum. His fair skin had remained the same pigment no matter the circumstance of his location of training, and the only thing he truly obtained since before his journey began was a tattooed mark along his face. It was a striking pair of spires that left darkened pits around his eyes, leaving knife-length engravings across his hair-less browlines up his forehead and down the length of his cheeks to his lower jawline.

Minutes after being bathed in a crimson overcast, the light dispersed and the ship rocked a midge upon landing. The ramp opened with a hissing whiff, leaving the natural 'light' of the outside exposed to him.

Opening his tattooed eyelids, a pair of blue eyes shined outward with full knowledge that he had arrived.

Standing upright, the man of a massive stature walked out with a series of clanking stomps. Exiting the ship he'd catch eye and marvel at the sheer magnitude of his surroundings. Even though he was on an exterior docking pad, he could see a series of looming statues of vague chiseled faces looking down in an ominous sign of submission. Lining either side of the valley, he could see in between them were various structures of black and grey color, one of which was newly unearthed within the last few years nearby the dour building he was parked alongside.

Soldiers of familiar black fatigue with red outlines indicated an Imperial presence, no doubt to keep order and additional security to a primary asset of Force wielding members of the Empire. Others, dressed not too different from him, were gathered around a mock-bazaar of merchants selling them items and purchasing less than significant finds found within the dig site; some of which looked from this distance to be body parts.

Before he could become too fascinated on the sight below, he could feel a cold presence wafting towards the pad before his eyes met it. Shifting his gaze he'd see a man of dark complexion with a short-shaven head of black hair. Brown eyes stared at him as he came closer, his form brought up with a clean, crisp appearance that showed his authority as much as how he conducted himself. White gloves and boots, armored plated shoulders and a uniform of outer black going grey and then white at its center and inner pants legs.

"Ah, you've arrived, good good," He spoke, his voice the man's face never breaking its cool cadence but implied a haste in their meaning. "You've much to do and not a lot of time to carry it out."

Gesturing to himself, the man in question answered the first question that popped into Sarcass' mind, "I am Overseer Tremel. For decades I've seen to many that have come here go through the trials of who is and is not worthy of joining the Sith Order. The trials," He continued, folding one hand over the other in front of his lap, gesturing offhandedly for emphasis to his continued briefing to the newly arrived man. "Are a means to weed out the weak. Those who survive the trials become Sith, or die."

"I didn't come all this way to die," Sarcass replied with a glare at the older man, raising a red wrapped finger to gesture at him. "Just point me in the right direction and I'll prove myself."

"Now that's the right attitude to have, initiate," Tremel replied with a brief, half-formed smile. It vanished, quick as it came, and then nodded with acknowledgement, "Yes, you are here ahead of schedule, because I deigned it so. I expect obedience forthright from this point on. You pass trials, serve me and I'll make you the most powerful acolyte in this academy."

"I hope you're right, Overseer," The aforementioned acolyte spoke, a darkly humored smile stretched across his face, giving the black tattoos on his face a twisted spiral look to it. "Otherwise this really will be for nothing."

A pregnant pause filled the air, a brief hiss of the outside wind of Korriban graced a chill over the two men. One stood still, rigid as a statue with an impassioned expression while the other simply opened his blue eyes to stare back in a threatening manner. The implication was apparent, but nothing was necessarily said out of turn.

So after a few more seconds passed, Tremel continued as if nothing was uttered from the branded man at all.

"The Trials will be far from the most difficult thing you face," He intoned, raising a gloved hand up to placate him. "Dangerous as they are, there's another threat you will face here. His name is Vemrin, and he's another acolyte here in the academy who means to kill you. We must ensure that this doesn't come to pass."

"It doesn't matter who aims to kill me," Sarcass boasted with a toothy grin, raising his arms out invitingly to unseen phantoms. "I'll crush them all under my heels. Is that not the Sith way?"

"That's not what I mean," The Overseer chided, leaning his neck to one side and rolling his extended wrist in a circle. "He's far more capable than most acolytes here. And unlike you, he's been here longer and thus feels entitled. You're being here is seen as an intrusion to his power, and he'll wish to eliminate you as an offensive rival."

"Then what do you propose?" The bald man inquired with a musing shrug. "Talk sense into him?"

"There's no reasoning with that kind of..._creature_," Tremel paused in his choice wording, as if he himself was unsettled by the acolyte he was warning Sarcass about. Shaking his head, he refocused his eyes to his aspiring initiate. "We must strengthen your connection with the Force to match his. The sooner you can do that, the less you have to fear from him."

Raising a black spire brow up, Sarcass crossed his arms with a look of intrigue.

"That training blade is insufficient," The Overseer pointed out, causing the branded man to look over his shoulder at the weapon holstered over his shoulder down his back. The cyan colored hilt of various fragmented plating was meant for a strong grip, with a few bits of circuitry adjusted for a switch to turn on its vibrational currents that'd run up and down the length of the serrated edges. Though dormant and a familiar weapon, Sarcass could see such a common foil as nothing impressive compared to more formidable warriors of the Sith.

"You will need a dominating weapon," He urged, his brows growing thick and creased along with the rest of beginnings of wrinkles surrounding his dark cold eyes. "In the tomb of Ajunta Pall, there's an old armory there. A strong Sith Warblade awaits you there."

Now, Sarcass had been well versed in many fields among his intense tutelage of warcraft. One of which was the history of his ancestors, and those that had dominated the galaxy for eons and had created the first society of the species that'd be known as 'Sith' that he founded upon this arid world. Among the first of the Sith Lords was Ajunta Pall, a once Jedi Master that led an era known as the 100 Years of Darkness. In the end, they were defeated, and turned on one another with the remains of the once great dark lord laid to rest here on Korriban.

If this was a warblade forged -or even held- by his hands, then the making of this weapon would definitely be a masterful tier.

"The tomb is thick with k'lor'slugs -deadly, savage creatures- be speedy but careful. They've been the end of many an acolyte," The Overseer warned.

"Nothing more perilous than the creatures we trained on in Ziost," Sarcass assured his superior flatly.

"Once you've acquired the warblade," Tremel continued, gesturing with import and eyes furrowed to reinforce this. "I suggest you spend some time in the tomb bloodying it. Once you are sated, come to me in my chambers in the academy. We'll talk more on what your next trial will entail afterwards."

"Don't expect me for awhile, Overseer," The branded man retorted with a depraved smile, his blue eyes gleaming with malice around his twisted tattoos running up and down his face. "I am long overdue a good blood bath."

A crisp nod was all he got and the man, cold as he had entered, departed in the opposite direction of the open corridor beyond the landing pad's rampart.

Angling his head in the direction of the hall that the tomb was allotted, he had the vague sense something else was arriving on the planet. Arching his gaze, he'd see a transport ship descending from the atmosphere, high up in its altitude. He wagered that it was another batch of arrivals, like himself.

Not wanting to be scuffed in his venture to the resting place of the Sith Lord, he rushed down the large spanning halls of the academy. Here the lighting was dim and the space between the walls was purposefully narrow. Octagonal shaped ridges between each space of what could be an open doorway led him down the wing, currently devoid of people. While the temperate climate was controlled within, he knew he shouldn't feel comfortable. This place was meant to mold him into a weapon of the Dark Side.

He had no room for error, nor margin for inadequacy. He had to become more than perfect. He had to be the best and he'd accept no other alternative till he achieved that measure.

Passing by a pair of bleak plated troopers standing guard to the outside, they gave him vacant unseen stares in approval for him departing the academy to the outside. Trotting out, he tasted the ashen dust of the wastes of the Valley, and descended down several winding handrail balconies of stairs that led around to the drab beige colored ground. Archaeologists were gathered at a safe distance at some unearthed ruins and monuments, some perched atop of the temple he was approaching; acolytes of varying stripes wandered across the area, wearing simple garbs for the most part with blades slung over their backs or held in hand.

Walking past the line of merchants lined on either side -in addition to a currently occupied tent full of recovering acolytes who were in varying stages of agony from run-ins by the local fauna- he fearlessly trotted his way towards the sandy-bronze colored architecture of the mausoleum in question. The tomb was decayed, nowhere near in its original form of preservation that it had been for eons before this point. The oldest of the burial sites had pillars half-formed and statues affixed to the entrance with chips and missing slabs off its face.

But the intent wasn't unseen by Sarcass. His blue eyes devoured the scenery with a morbid sense of awe and wonder. This was perhaps the oldest monument to the first of the non-species Sith that was formed. Much like the statues that towered over all other structures that been left to rot over time, the two smaller ones had a scene of ominous despair -heads hanging, near-featureless faces mournful and hands raised up to clasp before their dour visages- flanked either side of the entrance with a sense of foreboding.

Was it penance that the Sith Lord sought when he was buried here, or was he ashamed? He couldn't say, but there was a sense of emptiness that drifted within the necropolis within. A hollow sense of death that left nothing but a remnant of once was. He couldn't help but wonder exactly what transpired that left it with such a mark that he could feel it so potently at the mouth of such an ancient infrastructure.

Warped fencing that once barred the entry to the tomb curled inward, having been forced inward by an extreme amount of force till it had touched the interior walls within. And he could see shadows, dancing over artificial lighting that had been installed on the inside, with inhuman silhouettes. Grubby flesh maneuvered around, bulbous and large, that clung to the ground and was joined by others that scurried along the ceiling and adjacently to the walls.

They numbered up to six, with the largest one occupying the floor, and already rearing its mandibles up like dozens of legs that looked thick enough to be swords. A faceless rounded opening expanded outward, stretching with a sickly squelch that showed rows upon rows of teeth within. A belch released a shower a glob of acid towards the acolyte, followed by a bellowing roar that urged its smaller spawn towards his assuredly melting form.

That is, if he was a lesser prey.

The would-be projectile of acid vomited his way was deflected by the air itself, like a cone of energy unseen by the k'lor'slugs. Dropping to the floor of the cave in a sizzling pile of ichor, the tattooed man produced an unsettling smile. Reaching up towards his blade, an audible crackle was heard followed by a purring thrum as the vibrational frequency activated along the weapon. Bending his knees, he'd leap up into the air and whirl himself around in a windmill of slashing power towards the wall and ceiling mounted creatures.

A shower of gore followed, splashing around him while bouncing off the conscious barrier of telekinetic focus he had erected around himself. Bringing the blade down over its mouth, the flashing mandibles of the larger of the fiends scraped along his barrier and left shallow grooves across his muscle-defined suit of light armor. It did little to save it from the vivisection of vibrational severance left over its body, cutting it into a grisly but clean half.

Left there in a slew of body parts and ichor, Sarcass had gotten a taste of blood and a rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins. Moreover, the darker impulses within his being was enhanced and magnified, the scent of death compelling him to kill more. The Dark Side thrummed within, like a gong unheard but rather felt. The meditation he had sustained himself before had been ample preparation for the hunt he was on.

Now, to find more prey.

Entering further in, the unnatural frigid air did nothing to dampen the fire burning within his body. Assured as there was malice radiating from his being, more k'lor'slugs unwound from partitions of distended areas of the architecture's walls or fell from the ceiling. Screeching at this newest entrant, they'd be met with a series of swift killing strokes and telekinetic bludgeons. The creatures were no more challenging to him than the vicious beasts raised for combat practice for recruits on Ziost within the dark underbrush of the black forests.

It didn't dampen the fun, necessarily. These creatures had a predatory tenacity that was only rivaled by his own. Each sight of their entrails being destroyed, exposed to the open air brought a sense of euphoria to his senses. Tingling within the skull rattled pleasantly as he took in the foul stench of their dying wails, and pricked within the inner ears as he relished those sounds. It was a simple basest pleasure he took pleasure in, if only for the simple fact of these moments being fleeting in the grand scheme of things.

Soon he'd relish in killing things with far louder, more human screams.

Descending down a flat rampart of ancient brick, he'd see a formation of Imperial Troopers behind a series of dark fatigued crates for cover. The other rim of their protection was lathered in the stench of acid and claw marks of beasts, with the other side being riddled with the scorched mark of the fauna being perforated by their blasterfire. Their menacing respirator lined grimaces that had faux teeth and octagonal slanted visor eyes hid the fear he had smelled from them, and the only thing keeping these troopers from retreating was the sight of an academy instructor present with lightsaber drawn in readiness.

To cut them down or the beasts, they dared not test.

The only one of them that had a hint of composure was a man not wearing his helmet, exposing his tanned complexion with red plating -matching the unique color scheme of the troops flanking him- was a man with slicked back auburn hair and dark eyes. The older man was tempered, and stood at attention before the approaching acolyte, bringing his murderous jog to a pause to meet him. Seeing that he got his attention, the man erected himself fully in his disciplined manner and introduced himself.

"Excuse me, acolyte," He began to say, an air of education as well as respect laced his words in a formal way to indicate he understood the importance of the larger bald man's presence here was. "Sergeant Cormun, 5th Infantry Company, Korriban Regiment. Can...can I talk to you?"

The hesitation brought what would've been a flawless introduction to a fathomable sense of trepidation. Sith, of any stripe, had the potential to overturn any orders of military ranks should they desire less it be of an especially high command. Just daring to ask could incur a visceral rebuke at least and perhaps a physical altercation at worst; there was no way he'd be safe, especially if the acolyte in question wasn't of sound mind.

Luckily for him, Sarcass was anything but unreasonable. Smiling thinly, the initiate raised his currently inactive weapon and dragged the blood still leaking off its surface to the flat of one palm. Taking the grungy slime of insectoid life juice and letting it leak from his palm, the man kept a firm look up at him while this pointlessly grotesque display of intimidation was orchestrated casually in front of him.

"I need to clean my blade from all the slugs I just killed," He explained with a flash of his teeth, his blue eyes shining eerily within the dim lighting of the tomb. "Please, do speak, for I have time."

"Thank you," Cormun nodded with a firm but professional smile, gesturing with his face in a nod. "You're the acolyte that Overseer Tremel called in all special; heading down into the tomb to prove yourself?"

"Something like that," Sarcass replied, flipping the blade around to drag the sword's other ichor stained side over his gloved palm. "Why? Got some interest in Sith affairs?"

"I meant no disrespect," The Sergeant raised his hands up, his posture remaining rigidly erect but nothing showing outright cowardice. "I just thought that, with you coming down here to help build prestige for the overseers, why not help establish some ties with the Imperial military as well?"

Finishing dragging off a thick slab of bug blood off his blade, Sarcass fondled it between his fingers, relishing the gelatinous texture oozing between his gloved digits and drip in globs onto the floor. While some of the troopers eyed him warily -one even sounded like he was gagging- the instructor nearby gave a nasally snicker at the sight. Of course, the sergeant was unfettered by this display of morbid fascination, and continued to fixate his sight on the visibly amused initiate.

"I'm here commanding a hard target mission of exterminating these k'lor'slugs in this tomb," The Imperial Officer continued, placing his hands behind his back and spreading his legs in a disciplined waiting posture. "They're running rampant, and despite the good practice, have caused far too many causalities on hopeful acolytes already. Horrible monstrosities with mouths...bigger than your head. I've already lost three squads to those things, good men. These things that move in packs, they just...swallow men whole."

"I can imagine," The tattooed man spoke, a humored grin armed across his visage. "Creatures that large could certainly manage it. And between the acid and those teeth, they'd make your standard armor reduced to flint in seconds at least, a minute at most. A painful way to go."

"Which is exactly why we'd like your help in dealing with those things while you're in there," The Sergeant insisted with a thumb over his shoulder. "The fact of the matter is, the damn k'lor'slugs breed too fast for us to wipe them out conventionally. So, we targeted their egg chambers and they went insane. We had managed to get explosives and the detonated affixed to their nests only for the critters to surround us, overwhelming us. Had I and these men not been drawn farther back with Instructor Veshta," he nodded to the bob-haired woman of curvaceous persuasion in armor of similar fatigue to theirs and covered in bug blood down the breastplate. She gave a terse nod back and kept herself in a readied posture, stalking back and forth behind cover to imitate a waiting beast, while emanating an energy similar to that. "We would've died with them."

"It seems the beasts were smart enough to catch on what you were doing," Sarcass surmised with a gesture of his blood soaked, unarmed gloved hand. "That or your men weren't prepared to defend themselves from an ambush in their egg chambers."

"I don't know, sir," He replied with a shrug. "I hope this strategy works, and it make sense. Kill their offspring and their means of producing them, we can slaughter the rest."

Sighing, the acolyte raised his blade up to look at his own reflection in the limited lighting within the tomb. Blue eyes looked piercingly at the marred reflection. As he did so, a sight of something small and fast moved behind him. He had thought to turn around to engage it but found it was something dressed in a drab red jumpsuit, brushing past him in a sense of urgency. It was another acolyte with white hair, moving like a wraith across the aging floor and slashing at a nearby skittering k'lor'slug that had gotten too close.

Returning his gaze at the blade, he'd grin at it and wordlessly decide to commit. Before his gaze he'd watch the slanted reflection of his became distorted in the flick of a switch and a purring hum reengaged its vibrational frequencies. Distorting the air around it, a whirring hum past with a stroke of the weapon to his side and the burly man walked around the cover towards the remains of creatures that awaited further intrusions.

A howling snarl and a horde of man-eating insects skittered across the floor towards him, soon to be met in a dance of vibrating steel. The soldiers from afar would watch with awe and fear at the man's proficiency at arcing his blade from one bug to the other. Bludgeoning the still bleeding body away with a punch that sent it flying impossibly away into the others with superhuman strength, he'd flip up and over another before stabbing through lower thorax and grind his weapon through its backside.

Screeches filled the dim cavern as their death throes filled the cavern and the most visibly pronounced of the vermin was dispatched. Reveling in their final sounds, Sarcass pursued this secondary objective of his, noting what to do with the Sith Warblade the moment he acquired it. Weaving through a few more creatures in the main hall, he followed the path he thought ascribed them as indicated by the troopers' boot marks and blasterfire scorching the walls.

One chamber after the other, he dispatched the creatures without reservation and qualm. They all seemed to have a basic structure of biological development that set them up from a smaller stage to a man-eating size. He'd focus on incapacitating through a stunning move of his weapon that'd make it howl in pain, and then send a flurry of continuous strokes on the smaller ones that could easily be slain in simple attacks. Once done, he'd bring down his weapon a few more times on his larger quarry, killing it for good; a repetition he enjoyed each time he engaged the foul creatures.

Once arriving upon the scene, a monster of irrevocable size loomed over the eggs of a much more noxious scented room with dozens of unborn of their young lying at the central lot. While hundreds were affixed to the wall and even the ceiling, it was here that the explosives were placed around, firmly in place and much to the creatures' dismay, unable to be pulled apart by their bladed mandibles. The largest of them, a watcher of the brood -or Broodwatcher-, leered over towards his direction as if noticing his approach.

Twisting his blade in a fanciful flourish around his right hand, Sarcass grinned toothily with blue eyes glowing in contrast to the dismal bronze-brown mortar and brick enamored with bleak dim lighting. Letting out a bestial howl of his own, he lunged himself at the beast, swinging his weapon down to carve a gash through its larger chest past a few of its defending mandibles. Squealing out, it'd twist around and slam its lower body towards him, sending him sprawling backwards across the room.

Recovering in a tumbling roll, he staggered up, watching it gurgle and then spat out several wads of torso-sized acrid showers of disassembling goo at him. Leaping away at the last second to avoid the splash zone, he'd contend with a slew of smaller fiends, bursting from the earth to join the ones rushing across the ground towards him. Swinging his blade around, he'd slash their widening mouths, splashing blood over his face and chest while they let loose a cacophony of screams that resonated within his ears.

This only furthered the rage of the Broodwatcher, howling as it'd rush in a rampage towards him.

With blood caked over him, a fury overtook the acolyte as his pupils contracted and his teeth bared. Letting loose a snarling howl, he thrust himself like a torpedo at the creature, corkscrewing through its chest with the vibrating blade shoving through its chest out its back. A shrill squeal was let loose as he emerged the other side with a splash of blood and guts soaking him. Landing on the ground with a sickly squelch, he twisted around and began to eviscerate the larger beast repeatedly, ignoring the oncoming clattering of approaching smaller quarry.

The moment they tried to gnash and bite at them, they'd receive blurring strokes of his weapon, their lacerated corpses spraying the ground across him. Rearing back to the big corpse, he continued to hack and slash it, reducing it to a pile of innards until nothing of its exterior remained. His howls echoed the chamber until it was the only sound remained.

When his battle fever had settled, and the throbbing softened in his ears, he regained his focus once more.

This was the source of intrigue and equal unease among his peers as well as his superiors. He had a knack of tapping into his basest urges and embroiling himself into them so completely that he became an animal of pure instinct. The fury of which he'd bask himself within often broke him through all common sense and irrationality, but in exchange granted him enormous supply of irradiated Dark Side power. The bloodlust knew no bounds and there was no reasoning when he entered this stage. Until there was nothing alive within his senses would he finally relent, making it a weapon best used with no allies within arm's length.

So it was that he had completely slaughtered the defenders of the egg chambers. Returning to the detonator switches allotted next to the central part of the room, he entered a few of the switches before they were finally armed. Rushing out of the chamber as quickly as his gory person could allow, the crackling blast that quaked the room and shook the necropolis followed by a hail of screams all throughout the burial site was music to his ears. He had a feeling the beasts knew that their offspring, and their primary site of reproduction, had been eliminated.

Returning back to the sergeant, he drank in the sight of horror and disgust the imperials showed in their body language upon his arrival. His instructor looked at him with approval, however, and the berserker acolyte was rewarded in a monetary gift by the grateful officer, and he went about his continued search for the warblade that his overseer mentioned.

There was likely still many more things to kill once he got his hands on it.

Rushing through a wide open space, the swordsman continued to wreak havoc on all of the worm-like creatures that had infested this once hallowed ground. Tubular bodies were split open up and down, left and right, diagonally and from the inside out. Even debris were hurtled at the creatures to pulverize it when he wasn't using his bare hands and feet with enhanced force to rupture their bodies.

The next thing that graced his fancy was an intact datapad near a mostly digested corpse, ripped of flesh and armor with only a skeleton intact. Steaming with noxious fumes, Sarcass felt his nostrils curdle as he bent his knees down and picked up to read it. Thankfully it wasn't encrypted at the time of death so he had no trouble reading through its entry.

"_Imperial Edict 936: Mercenaries have taken advantage of the k'lor'slugs infestation in the tomb of Ajunta Pall, stealing artifacts from its depths - this situation is wholly unacceptable_.

"_You are authorized to use deadly force to send a message that further desecration will not be tolerated. The task is dangerous and hazard pay has been confirmed. See me at the medical center outside of the academy for compensation upon completion of your work_.

"_Signed, Sergeant Rikal._"

A curl of his lips brought a grim knowledge that the owner had met his end along with the rest of his imperial volunteers under charge of the strike force sent inside. If three squads of the previous team had met their ends by these beasts, it was likely they didn't even make it far enough to stop the thieves inside. It did mean that there'd be more bodies for him to slaughter, and even a paycheck at the end; a welcome but unnecessary bonus to his labor.

Looking up, he saw a barricade had been formed where a slew of armored individuals lied beyond the necropolis vista. He could tell, even a distance, from how they paced and held themselves that they weren't Imperial Military nor Navy. They must be the mercs this man was only a handful of meters to get to, had it not been for k'lor'slug acid that done him in.

Clicking his weapon on, he began to stalk ahead with a slow but measured pace.

Ahead, he could already hear their idle chatter, thinking they were safe behind the wall of giant creatures and the desolated imperial forces on the other side of that. One of them with thicker plating than the rest, looked upon a few trinkets and pieces of old embroidery that had been ransacked from other miscellaneous sarcophagus that had been laid to rest within the tomb. While he had no qualms about disturbing the dead, the way they had carried such items of significance caused his blood to curdle and his lips turn into a snarl.

A guard of the mercs had been creeping a stare over the two crates that had formed a narrow entrance into the open vaulted chamber, his eyes going wide at the sight of the bloodstained acolyte with blade in hand.

"H-Hey-!" He began to cry out, raising a rifle up to bear to open fire.

Pulling a leg back the acolyte kicked at the crate, releasing enough force to dent it after slamming it into the standing tomb raider's body. Careening across the room in a crunching roll with the supplies strewn across, he lied inert and barely functioning after breaking a good number of bones.

"What the-!"

"A Sith! We're under attack!"

"Take him down!"

The cacophony of shouts was a refreshing change of pace from the squealing and roars of beasts from earlier. A depraved smile stretched across the man's face, spiraling the black spires enamored up and down his face as he leaped into battle headfirst.

Jumping across the gap to the center piled three, he planted both of his large booted feet straight into the armored man's chest and crushed him under his weighted momentum between the other two. Slamming his unarmed hand in a back-knuckle whip to his jaw to veer the aim away, he twisted his body primarily to the right and bludgeoned the other merc straight into his unarmored face.

He'd watch the man's nose get crushed by the weapon's pommel, firing blindly as his crushed cartilage disabled his ability to see clearly with tears already formed in his eyes. A blurring stroke of a weapon cut a swathe into his armor, and a follow-up slash severed through its plating deep into his chest. Gargling out in pain, he'd cease his noises when a third slash severed his head from his shoulders in a spray of blood.

Even as the outer ring of thieves reached for their weapons to bear, Sarcass called upon the Force to beckon the disoriented other merc to his blood-covered grasp. Holding him by the neck, he used him as a shield as he rushed to the other side of the ring with his captive's body soaking up the blaster fire. Scattering a moment too late, he'd throttle the now perforated corpse of the raiders straight into the man with a throttling Force Push that slammed them both into the aging tomb wall with a meaty crunch.

Swinging around his blade, he'd meet the merc's short vibro-knife, overwhelming his guard's inferior strength to his own. Staggered by his one-armed stroke, he'd expertly swerve its course around in a curled arc that'd cut through his armor and drive it past his collarbone. Howling in pain, he clutched at his wound only to have his face grappled by Sarcass; muffling out a moment before he'd find his upper body wrenched off his feet and his skull slammed viciously into the ground with a squelch of skull giving way to the hard surface below.

"He's a monster!"

"No artifact's worth this!"

"He's just one guy; how is he doing this?!"

As they all debated on surrender, his blood began to throb and his head gonged once more. Twisting his head around he produced a savage grin as the light in his eyes gleamed in a menacing carnal fashion. With a hollower, he dashed across the room and stabbed into the man even as his suit's mesh received a few blaster shots from the man's pistol. He ignored it, driving his sword straight through his chest out of his back, bypassing the armor in a single stroke of pure Force. driving his aim.

Lifting him up into the air, he'd twirl around and throw him like a rag doll straight at one of the others that fired at him, soon crushing him under the man-made projectile. Spinning around he'd throw his vibroblade tip first like a lance straight at the face of another tomb raider, leaving only three others still left. Seeing him unarmed, they unleashed a hail of fire upon him, intending on pelting him with enough firepower to finally bring him down.

Even with his mind blurred, Sarcass had instincts to guide him along with the call of the Dark Side. In a blaze of heat that showered from him, vaporizing the blood he had been caked with in a hazy red mist, the man moved with an intense velocity that went beyond human ability. Leaping up he'd power through the bolts that had pelted him painfully across the chest, shoulder, arms and legs, releasing tendrils of brilliant crimson that wrapped around his body in a conduit of visceral light.

When he landed between the three with a mighty crack that stumbled them, his right hand reached out and grasped the man's throat. Crushing it with a flick his wrist, he'd slam the skull straight into the other man's face, obliterating both of their heads in a single burst of crimson light. When the other man raised a blaster to fire he'd find his body hurtled by an invisible bludgeon, crashing him into the wall hard enough to snap his spine.

The last body fell, and Sarcass felt his mind ease from the haze of fury. The pain that had been numbed from the experience only helped fuel his connection to the Force, renewing it with a more controlled anger around the points of injury behind his suit. The flow of blood stopped from his injuries and soon, within a couple of minutes, he had managed to give himself a basic patch-up. It was a standard practice among the most basic initiates to channel a base passion in order to accelerate the body's natural healing process; only more advanced learners could perform healing of a much more drastic scale without time to focus and could even keep one's body from dying.

Leaving the room cluttered in dead mercenaries, he discovered it wasn't the only room filled with such trespassers. Other chambers he came across were similarly arranged in a way that depicted them all as wayward mercenaries, hired to obtain these goods no doubt from some scrupulous crime boss to do his bidding. It didn't matter to him, they all bled the same way.

Though he had to be careful to not fall into his fury so completely, as his body could only handle so much in his current state. It was why his Overseer wanted to accelerate his trials, so that he could obtain the power necessary to ward off more skilled acolytes in the Dark Side. He may be cream of the crop from Ziost, but the more promising pupils here on Korriban could potentially tear you apart without even trying.

Finding the right staircase, a sense of cold dread filled Sarcass as he descended the stairs. Despite this place being untouched, he saw old mechanical droids standing inert in a row of ancient make. The machines looked like they had long since expired but he couldn't help but be wary of them. The steps that he tread and the floor he walked was caked in dust, but the air was so frigid he felt himself breathing vapor like the tundra of Ziost he had trained on occasion.

There, at the far end of the long lower ceiling chamber was a ritual circle of oddly bleak covered tiles with the normal brick mortar surrounding it in ancient lettering depiction. He recognized it as Sith language of the ancients, and among what Sarcass could see a pedestal of three were placed that indicated there were at one point a triage of weapons here. Only one remained, and it definitely predated the time of the lightsaber in its make, though even from a glance Sarcass could feel power radiating from it.

An ancient leathern handle of amethyst dye with black inscription of runes in Sith alphabet was seen. A pair of blades with its edges faced in the opposite direction had a continuation of the inscription across the flat of the ancient ebony colored metal. When he brushed the dust off of it, he could make out the inscription more clearly, and he read the words aloud in a soft whisper.

"_I am that which grips the heart in fright, hearkens night and silences the light._"

Feeling the grip of the weapon, Sarcass felt a surge of that cold power ebb through his hands and seep into his veins. Instead of the ice that he thought to expect, instead a slight sizzle of heat came with holding the ancient weapon. Whether it was recognizing him being a user of the Force or that he was a byproduct of the Dark Side, the weapon gave off a distinct hum and the lettering gave of a purplish glow across the weapon on both sides. He also swore he could make out the faintest of whispered from the object, as if it was speaking to him.

Then, the sound of whirring whines came from the once inert droids from behind. Turning around, he'd see them unleash blades of their own, crackling with a bleak energy and their automatons moving with a primordial duty long since expired. Clacking their flat feet forward across the floor, the near dozen mechanical guards raised their weapons in preparation to strike down the new owner of Ajunta Pall's blade.

Not questioning if the weapon's make-up was sufficient to deal real damage, Sarcass took to the fray with his body eager to doll out damage.

Moving with an inherent grace that he didn't believe himself to have, his body spun in a diagonal maneuver that aided the weapon's specific design in bringing one blade down and the other around to follow it. This allowed him to clash against the first droid's raised guard, bringing his superior momentum aided weight down to stumble its guard, bringing the other blade around to slash across its ancient chassis. A surge of sparks and an explosion fizzled out its existence that soon would mirror those that Sarcass tested the weapon upon.

It was by design that Sarcass could easily wield this new style of weapon, as all initiates at Ziost were trained in many forms of melee combat to help them familiarize themselves in various kinds of combat. Whether it was their specialty or not, didn't matter, so long as they could possess the aptitude to change weapon styles on the fly to give themselves a better edge. And given how easy Sarcass found himself cutting down the droid guardians, throwing himself at one and drawing himself to the other, he could see why this was a superior warblade.

Grinning with satisfaction, Sarcass decisively headed back to the academy, eager to find out what his next trial was to be and how he'd obtain an even greater power than before.

* * *

After he had spent a tireless time navigating through the tomb, slaying what remained of the k'lor'slugs and scattered bits of the thieving mercenaries, he had found the outside to be closer to Sundown than he expected. How much time had passed he couldn't say. Trekking out to the still present merchants who looked about ready to turn in for the night, a still waiting man of broad shouldered description awaited; one Sergeant Rikel.

He gave him the datapad he had found and informed him that he had slain the mercenaries that his men were sent in to dispatch.

"Ah, that's unfortunate," The man replied, his face not bearing its helmet, showing a mostly shaven head barring two short curly streaks across his scalp in a parallel line across the top of his cranium. His dark eyes looked at him with a glint of optimism as he grimly pointed out to him. "Hey, their loss is your gain, I suppose."

"I would've cut them down anyways," Sarcass confessed with a mirthful smirk. "It just happened to work out this way."

"Right," The Sergeant nodded with understanding. "Still, much appreciated, acolyte. Here's your reward."

After being divvied up a sizable reward that would've been split among the group of men that went down, the bald tattooed man felt a bit richer than when he started. Seeing that his Ziost prescribed armor-mesh had been bloodied and punctured, he thought an upgrade in equipment would be appropriate. One of the merchants allowed him to exchange what remained of his current material for a breastplated robe of black with red streaks along the hood, sleeves and lower trim. Plating was also imbued along the knees, elbows, boots and gauntlets giving him a versatile yet mostly protected arcane look to him.

Giving himself time to change, the man exchanged his training blade for a few extra credits -along with some bits and pieces of k'lor'slugs or mercenary equipment he rifled through in one piece- for additional bounty. Leaving them with his loot he set off to the inside of the academy, finding his way ahead to be greeted at the trapezoid entry to the academy outright.

It was a red skinned member of the Sith Species, dressed in the uniform of burgundy with stripes of white, the medium armored woman bore a distinct litheness to her physique only matched by her exotic if not frightening looks. A deep red pigment shone across her face with darker ruby lips and bright crimson eyes, the distinction of her bloodline didn't end there. Indeed a facet of being Pureblood meant that you had odd protrusions like horns protruding from places across one's flesh or head; in her case two perpendicular thorns of flesh jutted out from either brow, a pair of jagged barbed indentions across the lower cheek and the underside of the jaws. The only thing normal was the raven hair embroidered in luscious curls across the top with a few braids left to dangle between the back of her jaws and in front of her ears.

"Halt, acolyte," She spoke, her voice melodic and sweet despite her devilish appearance. "I come bearing a message from Overseer Tremel."

Stopping ahead, the man stopped and crossed his arms over his newly purchased plated chest, inquiring with a nod of his head, "And whom might you be, to speak on behalf of my overseer?"

"I'm Assistant Overseer, Loun," She introduced herself with a half-formed bow with an arm placed over her plated chest. Standing upright, she began to inform him of her assigned message.

"The Overseer is paving your path down the Dark Side, but you will require further training in fields special instructors can teach you here at the academy. You may wish to seek them out in the archives of the academy. There they can teach you, and give you texts to holocrons to study from to supplement your teachings."

"I was told to meet with him to report my success of completing my trial," He informed her, gesturing to the ancient warblade slung over his back. "But I'll make sure to do just that."

"May you find your chains broken, acolyte," She recited, undoubtedly from the Sith Code itself to him as a form of farewell.

Giving off a nod and a grunt, Sarcass strode off in long-legged steps. The academy was a lot more occupied in the open chamber near the steps that led up to its more accessible secondary floor. After asking around, he was told by one of the guards the directions to Overseer Tremel's office, and took a left from the central staircases to a more flat, pillar-aligned set of halls with crimson carpets giving a much more presentable sense of flare to his walk. Walking down a few steps he'd see the light was dimmer and with a hint of a shadow of blue; one that left an impression on a pair of individuals awaiting his arrival that didn't look official in the slightest.

The shorter one, unfolded his arms and placed his hands on his hips, glaring ahead at him while making a motion with his nose, "Hey, let me have a look at you."

He complied, if only with humor, as he adjusted his blue eyes at the two.

The stout one looked at him with a critical eye, allowing the taller tattooed acolyte to observe him. His hair was trimmed short, raven black but in a bizarre set of straight over and around segments of shaven spirals of hair as if a kind of symbol in its own right. Dark eyes stared at him with a fair pigment, offset by the nine'o'clock shadow over his face and the prominent pair of scars that intersected; the first from above his right eye down at an angle across his cheekbone over his lips to the center of his chin and the second being straight across from the left cheek across the mangled bridge of his nose over to the other cheek. His uniform wasn't anything fancy, but it had plenty of plating, and a meticulously crafted warblade slung over his shoulder of his own, more than likely plucked out of the same tomb if not a similar one; or it could be a convincing replica with modern technology, Sarcass couldn't say.

"Hmmm," He hummed aloud, his gaze scrutinizing him as he raised a hand to stroke his chin thoughtfully. "So, you're Overseer Tremel's secret weapon? Impressive, to be sure. Afraid the old man waited a bit too long, though."

"And you are...?"

"I'm Vemrin," The man answered pointedly, his eyes glaring daggers back at Sarcass with words to reinforce his hatred of the new arrival. "And unlike you, I've fought and bled for everything I have. I demand respect."

Sighing aloud, the branded initiate understood what was going on. It was why he came with a larger built crony, after all, and alone in the shadow of his superior's office.

"It looks like you're demanding attention," Sarcass replied with a half-formed smirk on his face, crossing his arms and shrugging nonchalantly. "And are you implying I didn't work at all to get here? That sounds like an insult to me."

"Please," Vemrin sneered, gesturing dismissively to reaffirm his words. "Everyone can see what Tremel is doing. If Overseer Tremel made his move a year ago, he might have had a chance. But now, too little too late."

"This is ridiculous, Vemrin!" The larger, and easily less intelligent of the pair spoke with a weaselly voice ill-fitted with his stature. He wore a pair of curved pauldrons on either shoulder, with matte grey tunic with crimson inline embroidered down into a tassle at his waist hanging between his thighs. The crimson gloved and booted man was bald with a brand of his own, marked in a slight diagonal line from his temples and cheeks up around his ears to the back of his head in a full loop, with an angled mark touching the bridge of his own nose that arched straight over his chrome dome to the back. His cobalt eyes seethed with bared teeth above his goatee, his more refined vibroblade clinked over his shoulder as he fidgeted anxiously as he didn't hide his insistent on his darker impulses. "Let's just kill him and hide the body!"

"This isn't Balmora anymore, Dolgis," The lead of the pair informed in a more hushed tone, his sight trained on his larger partner. "Here there are rules. Traditions. We'll leave the shortcuts to Overseer Tremel and his last pathetic hope here."

A sudden, heavy boot was felt as much as heard, placing the man in question less than a hand's breadth away from them. It made Dolgis jump back and reach for his sword, while Vemrin turned his face to sneer up at him. He was met with thin-lidded glare, whose blue eyes shined angrily in a sharp contrast to how low his words permitted from his lips.

"I may not know your problem with the overseer, Vemrin, but you can't scoff at me and discount my presence as an afterthought. Make one wrong move, say one thing out of turn, and you won't have anyone to protect you. Not even the academy. So keep that in mind next time you speak to me in such a way that lacks the respect you crave so badly."

"We'll see about that," He snarled once more, stepping back and then around the larger acolyte without looking back. "Dolgis, let's go."

"Coming with, Vemrin," The weaselly partner replied, waiting for the shorter man to dip around the corner and leave them alone. The moment that it happened, his voice dropped a level down to a deeper cadence, his face growing closer to Sarcass while jabbing a finger at his chest. "Listen to me, you useless pissant. Acolytes aren't allowed to murder each other. But accidents can't happen. It isn't murder if there aren't witnesses."

"You're right," Sarcass fully grinned back, much to the mutually big brute's annoyance as he hissed back. "It'd be a shame if they found your sad excuse of a body strewn up all its own, with its entrails on the wrong side of the body. What a tragedy that'd be?"

"I don't care what you say," Dolgis replied with a swing of both hands, jabbing his other finger at his chest once more. "No more warnings. Vemrin is the Alpha monster here. You go after Vemrin, you die."

"Isn't that between Vemrin and I? Or are you his pet?"

Snarling, the man coiled his body back, fully prepared to attack in the most telegraphed manner potential. However, a sharp cry of "Dolgis!" got him to defuse and simply shove his way past the similarly but different tattooed man. Once he had finally vanished, the blue-eyed initiate felt like his life as a Sith-to-be was going to be a lot more interesting from here on out.

* * *

**A/N**: And here's the other Sith Origin: The Warrior. I wanted to sell just how impressive Sarcass was just by presentation and how he conducted himself. Of course compared to the mooks thrown his way, much like Jez'belial, they aren't really a match for him. I liked tying the idea of Channeling Fury to create a Berserker Rage so to speak to give him an advantage that'd easily put him above his peers and grant him his own unique ability. Of course, drawbacks of doing it back to back would eventually exhaust him so he can't always rely on losing his sanity in exchange for more power. And a little mention of Jez passing him by to give indication of them first meeting. It'll be neat to describe how their training begins since that's always glanced over in-game and what kind of impression they'll make as they draw upon each other's


End file.
